Methods & Practice
Community Power New Mexico, Labor Hub.
Educating young people on tool safety and planting vegetables for the community
A tool library shed that we funded, built and manage. It houses tools that anyone can borrow free, so our neighbors and our partner organizations can take part in accessible, constructive work.
A planting day at one of our public gardens, made with our partner organization With Many Hands (WMH) Alamogordo. The garden will feed the historic community that built it.
“The situation that happened with the fallen elm tree is not unique. Like many families in Alamogordo, and throughout New Mexico, the expense of a fallen tree could potentially have been an added stress on family finances that most families in Alamogordo, are not financially equipped to handle…Community Power New Mexico saw an issue of concern from the post and, responded on NextDoor, and then in person with volunteers in action. Within 24 hours their volunteers showed up with multiple chainsaws.”
— Chris Edwards, Editor at 2nd Life Media
ASSESS
Our Methods
PLAN
We begin with U.S. Census Bureau data, published municipal, county and state budgets, and the lived experience of our community. From these sources we build a clear picture of what our communities need and how best to use our resources to meet those needs.
Once we know the needs and our capacity to meet them, we organize with individual neighbors, the wider community, local government, local businesses and other organizations. Together we start new events and lasting programs and seek media coverage, and we serve first the neighbors who are most marginalized and left out.
What Makes Us Different
PROVIDE
Using the information and resources we have gathered, we implement and adapt our plans collaboratively in order to build real, lasting infrastructure for our communities, designed for longevity and accessibility from the start. It ranges from community tool libraries and free-to-harvest, volunteer-run gardens to individual help such as delivering food to homebound neighbors and taking out the trash for neighbors with disabilities. (Keep the last clause only if it is true; see Part 2.)
None of our board makes a dime from this work, none of us own a business to be benefited, and we unanimously labor in this with the principle of being non-partisan in the sense of modern political parties. We seek only to use this platform as a means to materially aid our community and hopefully inspire and enable others to do the same. We are a team of folks who are motivated solely by our commitment to you and belief that our community is worth helping.
We look forward to meeting you. You are our neighbor, after all.